Kurfürstendamm
Encyclopedia
The Kurfürstendamm, known locally as the Ku'damm, is one of the most famous avenues
Avenue (landscape)
__notoc__In landscaping, an avenue or allée is traditionally a straight route with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each, which is used, as its French source venir indicates, to emphasize the "coming to," or arrival at a landscape or architectural feature...

 in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. The street takes its name from the former Kurfürsten (prince-elector
Prince-elector
The Prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire were the members of the electoral college of the Holy Roman Empire, having the function of electing the Roman king or, from the middle of the 16th century onwards, directly the Holy Roman Emperor.The heir-apparent to a prince-elector was known as an...

s) of Brandenburg
Margraviate of Brandenburg
The Margraviate of Brandenburg was a major principality of the Holy Roman Empire from 1157 to 1806. Also known as the March of Brandenburg , it played a pivotal role in the history of Germany and Central Europe....

. This very broad, long boulevard
Boulevard
A Boulevard is type of road, usually a wide, multi-lane arterial thoroughfare, divided with a median down the centre, and roadways along each side designed as slow travel and parking lanes and for bicycle and pedestrian usage, often with an above-average quality of landscaping and scenery...

 can be considered the Champs-Élysées
Champs-Élysées
The Avenue des Champs-Élysées is a prestigious avenue in Paris, France. With its cinemas, cafés, luxury specialty shops and clipped horse-chestnut trees, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées is one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strip of real estate in the world. The name is...

 of Berlin — full of shops, houses, hotels and restaurants. In particular, many fashion designers have their shops there, as well as several car manufacturers' show rooms.

Description

The avenue with four lines of plane trees
Platanus
Platanus is a small genus of trees native to the Northern Hemisphere. They are the sole living members of the family Platanaceae....

 runs for 3.5 km (2.2 mi) through the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf
Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf is the fourth borough of Berlin, formed in the 2001 administrative reform by merging the former boroughs of Charlottenburg and Wilmersdorf.-Overview:Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf covers the western centre of the City of Berlin...

 borough in western Berlin. It branches off from the Breitscheidplatz
Breitscheidplatz
Breitscheidplatz is a major public square in the inner city of Berlin, Germany. Together with the Kurfürstendamm boulevard it marks the centre of former West Berlin.-Geography:...

 near Bahnhof Zoo
Berlin Zoologischer Garten railway station
Berlin Zoologischer Garten station was the central transport facility in West Berlin during the division of the city, and thereafter for the western central area of Berlin until opening of the new Berlin Central Station on 28 May 2006...

 and the ruins of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church
The Protestant Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church is located in Berlin on the Kurfürstendamm in the centre of the Breitscheidplatz. The original church on the site was built in the 1890s. It was badly damaged in a bombing raid in 1943...

 and leads southwestward through the Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg
Charlottenburg is a locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, named after Queen consort Sophia Charlotte...

 district. At the junction with Joachimstaler Straße it passes the Café Kranzler
Café Kranzler
Café Kranzler is a famous café on Kurfürstendamm in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin, Germany.Today not much is left of the original Café Kranzler opened in 1834 by Austrian-born confectionist Johann Georg Kranzler on Unter den Linden No. 25 at the corner of Friedrichstraße in the present-day...

, successor of the Café des Westens, a famous venue for artists and bohémiens
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

 of the pre-World-War-I era. Near Uhlandstraße U-Bahn station
Uhlandstraße (Berlin U-Bahn)
The underground station Uhlandstraße is the western terminus of U1 line, which is part of the Berlin U-Bahn network in Germany.The station opened on October 12, 1913 as the first section of a projected metro line connecting Wittenbergplatz with Berlin-Halensee railway station which was never built...

 is the Kempinski
Kempinski
Kempinski Hotels S.A. is a luxury hotel group. Kempinski Hotels, the trading name for Kempinski Hotels S.A., is an independent Swiss delisted S.A., which is involved in a number of luxury hotel and hospitality related businesses, including conference, catering and hotel supplies.Kempinski Hotels...

 hotel as well as the Theater am Kurfürstendamm at the site of a former exhibition hall of the Berlin Secession
Berlin Secession
The Berlin Secession was an art association founded by Berlin artists in 1898 as an alternative to the conservative state-run Association of Berlin Artists. That year the official salon jury rejected a landscape by Walter Leistikow, who was a key figure amongst a group of young artists interested...

 art association.

At Adenauerplatz the boulevard reaches the district of Wilmersdorf
Wilmersdorf
Wilmersdorf is an inner city locality of Berlin, formerly a borough by itself but since Berlin's 2001 administrative reform a part of the new borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.-History:...

, where it passes the Schaubühne
Schaubühne
The Schaubühne am Lehniner Platz is a famous theatre in the Wilmersdorf district of Berlin, located at almost the middle of the famous Kurfürstendamm. It is a conversion of the Kino Universum, designed by Erich Mendelsohn in 1926. This was perhaps the first Modernist cinema built in the world, as...

 theatre on Lehniner Platz. The more sober western or "upper" end of the Kurfürstendamm is marked by the Berlin-Halensee railway station
Berlin-Halensee railway station
Halensee is a station in the Halensee district of Berlin. It is served by the S-Bahn lines , and .-Position:It is located at the prosaic western end of the Kurfürstendamm, one of Berlin's most famous and important boulevards and near the lake Halensee, after which the small locality of the city...

 on the Ringbahn line and the junction with the Bundesautobahn 100
Bundesautobahn 100
is an Autobahn in Germany. The A 100 encloses the city centre of the German capital Berlin, running from the Wedding district of the Berlin-Mitte borough in a southwestern bow through Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf and Tempelhof-Schöneberg to Neukölln...

 (Stadtring) at the Rathenauplatz roundabout, featuring the long disputed 1987 "Beton Cadillacs" sculpture by Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell was a German painter, sculptor, noise music maker and Happening artist of the second half of the 20th century. Wolf Vostell is considered one of the pioneers of video art, environment-sculptures, Happenings and the Fluxus Movement...

.

Outlets located on the Kurfürstendamm include Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton
Louis Vuitton Malletier – commonly referred to as Louis Vuitton , or shortened to LV – is a French fashion house founded in 1854 by Louis Vuitton. The label is well known for its LV monogram, which is featured on most products, ranging from luxury trunks and leather goods to ready-to-wear, shoes,...

, Chanel
Chanel
Chanel S.A. is a French fashion house founded by the couturier Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, well established in haute couture, specializing in luxury goods . She gained the name "Coco" while maintaining a career as a singer at a café in France...

, Gucci
Gucci
The House of Gucci, better known simply as Gucci , is an Italian fashion and leather goods label, part of the Gucci Group, which is owned by French company PPR...

, Valentino
Valentino
Valentino Clemente Ludovico Garavani , best known as Valentino, is an Italian fashion designer and founder of the Valentino SpA brand and company. His main lines were Valentino, Valentino Garavani, Valentino Roma, and R.E.D...

, Cartier
Cartier
-Places:* Cartier Island, an island north-west of Australia that is part of Australia's Northern Territory* Cartier, Manitoba, a rural municipality in Canada* Cartier, Ontario, a small town in Northern Ontario* Cartier , Quebec-Other uses:...

, Versace
Versace
Gianni Versace S.p.A. , usually referred to as Versace, is an Italian fashion label founded by Gianni Versace in 1978.The first Versace boutique was opened in Milan's Via della Spiga in 1978, and its popularity was immediate. Today, Versace is one of the world's leading international fashion houses...

 and Dolce & Gabbana
Dolce & Gabbana
Dolce & Gabbana is an Italian luxury industry fashion house. The company was started by the Italian designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana in Milan, Italy. By 2005 their turnover was €597 million....

.

Historical notes

Unlike the adjacent streets the Kurfürstendamm developed out of a historic corduroy road
Corduroy road
A corduroy road or log road is a type of road made by placing sand-covered logs perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area....

  laid out by the Brandenburg electors to reach the Grunewald
Grunewald
Grunewald is a locality within the Berliner borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Famous for the homonymous forest, until 2001 administrative reform it was part of the former district of Wilmersdorf.-Geography:The locality is situated in the western side of the city and is separated from...

 hunting lodge erected in 1543. Though the exact date of the building is unknown, an unnamed causeway leading from the Stadtschloss through the swampy area between the settlements of Charlottenburg (then Lietzow) and Wilmersdorf to Grunewald is depicted in a 1685 map. The name Churfürsten Damm was first mentioned between 1767 and 1787.

From 1875 the former bridlepath was embellished as a boulevard with a breadth of 53 m (173.9 ft) on the personal initiative of chancellor Otto von Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck
Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg , simply known as Otto von Bismarck, was a Prussian-German statesman whose actions unified Germany, made it a major player in world affairs, and created a balance of power that kept Europe at peace after 1871.As Minister President of...

, who also proposed the building of the Grunewald mansions colony at its western end. In 1882 Ernst Werner von Siemens
Ernst Werner von Siemens
Ernst Werner Siemens, von Siemens since 1888, was a German inventor and industrialist. Siemens' name has been adopted as the SI unit of electrical conductance, the siemens...

 presented his Elektromote
Elektromote
The Electromote was the world's first vehicle run like a trolleybus, which was first presented to the public on April 29, 1882, by its inventor Dr. Ernst Werner von Siemens in Halensee, a suburb of Berlin, Germany. The Elektromote operated from April 29 to June 13, 1882, on a 540 m ...

 trolley bus concept at an experimental track near Halensee station. Nearby the Lunapark opened in 1909, then Europe's largest amusement park
Amusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...

 modelled on Coney Island
Coney Island
Coney Island is a peninsula and beach on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Brooklyn, New York, United States. The site was formerly an outer barrier island, but became partially connected to the mainland by landfill....

, where boxer Max Schmeling
Max Schmeling
Maximillian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling was a German boxer who was heavyweight champion of the world between 1930 and 1932. His two fights with Joe Louis in the late 1930s transcended boxing, and became worldwide social events because of their national associations...

 won his first title of a German Lightheavyweight Champion in 1926. After a long period of decline the park was finally closed in 1933, large parts are today covered by the Stadtautobahn.

Especially during the "Golden Twenties
1920s Berlin
The Golden Twenties in Berlin was a vibrant period in the history of Berlin, German history, and European history in general.-Weimar culture:...

" the Kurfürstendamm area of the "New West" was a centre of leisure and nightlife in Berlin, an era that ended with the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 and the Nazi Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...

in 1933. The shops and businesses owned by Jewish tradespeople became the target of several pogroms, culminating in the "Reichskristallnacht" of November 9, 1938. In World War II the boulevard suffered severe damages from air raids and the Battle of Berlin
Battle of Berlin
The Battle of Berlin, designated the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation by the Soviet Union, was the final major offensive of the European Theatre of World War II....

.

Nevertheless after the war rebuilding started quickly and when Berlin was separated into East
East Berlin
East Berlin was the name given to the eastern part of Berlin between 1949 and 1990. It consisted of the Soviet sector of Berlin that was established in 1945. The American, British and French sectors became West Berlin, a part strongly associated with West Germany but a free city...

 and West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

, the Kurfürstendamm became the leading commercial street of West Berlin in its Wirtschaftswunder
Wirtschaftswunder
The term describes the rapid reconstruction and development of the economies of West Germany and Austria after World War II . The expression was used by The Times in 1950...

 days. It was therefore the site of protest
Protest
A protest is an expression of objection, by words or by actions, to particular events, policies or situations. Protests can take many different forms, from individual statements to mass demonstrations...

s and major demonstrations
Demonstration (people)
A demonstration or street protest is action by a mass group or collection of groups of people in favor of a political or other cause; it normally consists of walking in a mass march formation and either beginning with or meeting at a designated endpoint, or rally, to hear speakers.Actions such as...

 of the German student movement
German student movement
The German student movement was a protest movement that took place during the late 1960s in West Germany. It was largely a reaction against the perceived authoritarianism and hypocrisy of the German government and other Western governments, and the poor living conditions of students...

, while on April 11, 1968 spokesman Rudi Dutschke
Rudi Dutschke
Alfred Willi Rudi Dutschke was the most prominent spokesperson of the German student movement of the 1960s. He advocated 'a long march through the institutions' of power to create radical change from within government and society by becoming an integral part of the machinery...

 leaving the office of the Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund
Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund
Der Sozialistische Deutsche Studentenbund was founded 1946 in Hamburg, Germany, as the college organisation of the SPD...

 on Kurfürstendamm No. 140 was shot in the head.

After German reunification
German reunification
German reunification was the process in 1990 in which the German Democratic Republic joined the Federal Republic of Germany , and when Berlin reunited into a single city, as provided by its then Grundgesetz constitution Article 23. The start of this process is commonly referred by Germans as die...

 the Kurfürstendamm rivaled with central places like Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz is an important public square and traffic intersection in the centre of Berlin, Germany, lying about one kilometre south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag , and close to the southeast corner of the Tiergarten park...

, Friedrichstraße
Friedrichstraße
The Friedrichstraße is a major culture and shopping street in central Berlin, forming the core of the Friedrichstadt neighborhood. It runs from the northern part of the old Mitte district to the Hallesches Tor in the district of Kreuzberg...

 or Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz
Alexanderplatz is a large public square and transport hub in the central Mitte district of Berlin, near the Fernsehturm. Berliners often call it simply Alex, referring to a larger neighborhood stretching from Mollstraße in the northeast to Spandauer Straße and the City Hall in the southwest.-Early...

, which led to the closing of numerous cafés and cinemas. It retained the character of a flâneur
Flâneur
The term flâneur comes from the French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer"—which itself comes from the French verb flâner, which means "to stroll". Charles Baudelaire developed a derived meaning of flâneur—that of "a person who walks...

 and upscale shopping street as the western continuation of the Tauentzienstraße
Tauentzienstraße
Tauentzienstraße is a major shopping street in the western part of Berlin, Germany. It is approximately 500 metres long and lies between two important squares, Wittenbergplatz and Breitscheidplatz...

 with its large department stores.

The globally unique international art project United Buddy Bears
United Buddy Bears
Buddy Bears are a series of painted, life-size fibreglass bear sculptures originally developed in Berlin, Germany. The first Buddy Bear was created by the German businesspeople Klaus and Eva Herlitz, in cooperation with the sculptor Roman Strobl in 2001....

is presented in Berlin on the boulevard Kurfürstendamm during the summer 2011.

External links

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